Rizal’s Speech
LAGOY, Reden James V.
BSCOE 2-3
Equality and Freedom of Rizal
In 1884, the Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts awarded medals to two of the Filipinos living
in Spain with Rizal. The silver medal was given to Felix Hidalgo’s “Christian Virgins Exposed to
the Populace” and the gold medal was given to Juan Luna’s famous painting, the “Spolarium”.
These awards were considered to be a large step for Filipinos to be recognized to the world. To
celebrate this momentous occasion, they held a banquet to fellow Filipinos living in Spain during
that time. It was surely a joyous occasion, it was not only to honor for the awards of Juan Luna
and Felix Hidalgo, but it was also the speech made by Rizal to commemorate the two and that
the achievement of the Filipinos was a sign for equality and freedom to the country.
Rizal starts off with a humble introduction following by saying that Luna and Hidalgo are a
glory to both Spain and to the Philippines. Because of this, Rizal stated that the unification of
Spain and the Philippines is not a mere dream anymore. This is exemplified by comparing the
two nations. We can see how Rizal wanted the Philippines to be a province of Spain and that the
Filipinos could represent in the Cortes so that they cannot be called a colony anymore. Because
of the prevalent discrimination between the Spaniards and the Filipinos, even calling Indios by
the Spaniards is obvious evidence of racial prejudice in the country. But thanks to the awards
achieved by Luna and Hidalgo, this proved that the Filipinos can be equal to the Spanish and that
they have the capabilities of representing in the arts to the world.
Rizal continues by giving ideas of unity and freedom using his poetic skills. By using
analogies, metaphors, and figures of speech about uniting the Spanish and Filipinos is one of
Rizal’s key points in his speech. The analogy of “the oriental chrysalis is leaving the cocoon” is
one of the best moments in the speech for me. This signifies that the colonial period of the
Philippines will end and will finally experience freedom like a butterfly leaving the cocoon. This is
a statement that will eventually take place after 14 more years.
Another thing that Rizal amazingly did in his speech is that he described the paintings
made by Luna and Hidalgo to describe their homeland. Even though the painting was quite dark
and took place in a Roman setting, the colors, techniques, and the lighting was described similarly
how the Philippines is like one of the colors, the lighting or even the techniques. He compared the
paintings to each other and to the Philippines. And to that he also added the dark and the miseries
in both paintings described what was also happening in their country. The discrimination, the
abuse of power, and many more problems that the country had that time was also described by
Rizal in a somewhat brief manner as this is a banquet to honor the achievement of Luna and
Hidalgo.
One point that we can also see in his speech is in the line, “What does a piece of red and
yellow cloth matter, what do rifles and cannon matter, there were a feeling of love, of tenderness,
does not sprout, there were no fusion of ideas, unity of principles, harmony of opinions exists”.
This just shows how Rizal never really wanted revolution to have reforms in his country, he wanted
the youth to have better education, so that similarly to how Luna and Hidalgo achieved a honor,
the youth can bring the reforms needed to the country. The speech ended remarking the
contributions of Luna and Hidalgo to the Filipinos, truly a wonderful speech indeed.
Rizal was applauded and cheered over his speech. Making headlines in local newspapers.
His work was truly popular and timely as this is one of his works that made a name in not only in
the Philippines but also in the world as this topic does not only apply to the Filipinos but also to
people who are being discriminated by their race. As Rizal said in his speech, “Genius knows no
country, genius sprouts everywhere.”